


Even Then

by LylaRivers



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: But also, Crowley is a pine tree, Crowley yells at God, M/M, So be safe, The Spanish Inquisition, crowley is jewish and you can't stop me, just pining, no actual shippy stuff, the author is jewish and is gonna make all her faves jewish too, the depictions of violence aren't super graphic but some of the topics are definitely triggering, the holocaust/ the shoah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:42:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21627019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LylaRivers/pseuds/LylaRivers
Summary: “If you try to tell me it’s ineffable…” Crowley threatens.The angel arches an eyebrow at him. “What would you call it?”“My job made easier,” Crowley grumbles. “I just don’t understand how killing other people in Her Name is supposed to be Holy.”AKA Crowley yells at the Almighty, across multiple events in history.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 50
Collections: Good Omens is Jewish and so are we





	Even Then

**Author's Note:**

> Guess what children it's time for YET MORE Jewish Good Omens Nonsense tm. Shoutout to the Ace Omens discord for letting me spitball, particular thanks to Kedreeva for the obvious solution to a dilemma that I missed, and to Rory for the absolutely heartbreaking song that I eventually abandoned as too on the nose (but might yet make an appearance in another fic).

**The Great Flood**

_ I believe in the sun, even when it's not shining _

Aziraphale stands at the entrance to the small room Crawley has miracles in the Ark, hiding several small children. He looks vaguely disapproving, and Crawley desperately hopes that vage disapproval is not going to translate into Divine Wrath anytime soon. “Are you going to smite me? Toss them all overboard?” Crawley asks wearily. 

If it were any other angel, he would have an immediate fight on his hands, with the winner deciding the fate of the children. With Aziraphale- an angel who  _ gave his G-d given flaming sword away to the first humans _ \- Crawley thinks he might have a chance at logic. Or wiles. Or something. 

“Now, that would hardly be angelic or merciful,” Aziraphale says, and Crawley lets out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. The boat hits a swell, and several of the children topple over, not expecting the sudden change in position. 

At that moment, one of the toddlers lets out a wail, and Crawley bolts over to the kid, picking her up. “Shh, shh shh shhh,” Crawley soothes, bouncing the kid in his arms. “Hey, it’s going to be alright. We’ll get off this boat soon enough.”

“Actually, I don’t think we will,” Aziraphale corrects. He settles down on the floor boards, and several of the children crawl over to him, settling around and on him. 

“Why’s that, angel?” Crawley asks. 

“The official memo said the storm will last forty days and forty nights,” Aziraphale explains, patting the curls of one of the younger kids absently. “This is only the first week, after all.”

“How long does water take to flood?” Crawley asks.  _ How long does it take for every living thing on this planet to drown _ ? he doesn’t ask. It wouldn’t do to frighten the children again. 

“I think it has more to do with the principle of the thing, rather than any particular timeline,” the angel explains. “The Almighty wants to make a point. Or at least, that’s what I was told.”

“Make a point to who?” Crawley asks, never stopping his bouncing of the toddler. He raises his eyebrows significantly. 

“The future generations, I suppose,” Aziraphale says. 

“That’s...” Crawley starts to say.

“Ineffable,” Aziraphale says firmly, with a look at the children around them, cutting off what was clearly going to be a lot of swearing. 

The kid in Crawley’s arms starts crying again, for no discernable reason. “Shhh,” Crawley soothes again. The child quiets at his voice, which gives him a thought. The angel is still sitting there, so he’s going to get some kind of a Look, but it’s the only song he can think of. “ _ Oseh shalom bim'ro'mav, hu ya'aseh shalom alei'nu, v'al kol yoshvei tevel, v'imru amen _ ,” he sings, a melody reminiscent of the celestial harmonies he used to sing. The children around him settle in, curling around his body. The little girl in his arms falls asleep, finally exhausted. 

“Amen,” Aziraphale says, meeting his eyes. 

Crawley ducks his head, unable to look at the softness in the angel’s face. It doesn’t mean anything. It just means that this was the only thing he could think of to get the kids to go to sleep. 

“I need to go,” Aziraphale tells the children hanging on him, reluctantly. “I have duties to perform, but I’ll come back with food, as soon as I can.”

“Real food?” one of the older kids asks, perking up. “Mr. Crawley’s been miracling up food, but it doesn’t taste right.” 

“Real food,” the angel promises. With that, he deposits those children hanging on him around Crawley, and leaves, closing the door firmly behind him. 

“Will he really, Mr. Crawley?” another kid asks. 

“Of course he will,” Crawley says, with absolutely no doubt in his mind. “An angel is as good as his word, after all. It’s best to just get some sleep, and dream of the sun.”

“Sing!” one of the younger children says. 

“Do you want to learn it?” Crawley asks the older children. They nod fervently. “Alright then. Repeat after me.  _ Oseh shalom bim'ro'mav _ .”

The children follow his lead, learning the song that reminds him too much of the Heaven he was cast out of. 

Years later, he hears the words in a synagogue for the first time, and nearly falls out of his seat. 

***

**1493, Spain**

_ I believe in love, even when I feel it not _

***

Aziraphale finds him, pisesed out of his mind, three sheets to the wind, hunkered down in the corner of a pub. He’s got the commendation, still smelling faintly of sulfur, stuffed in his pocket, but it’s wet enough from someone pouring a glass of water on him that the smell has mostly dissipated. 

“Crowley! What are you doing, my dear?” Aziraphale asks.

“Celebrating!” Crowley says brightly. He’s exhausted, mind, body and spirit, and he has no filter. “I got a commend.. commesh… a job well done paper! I did bad, angel!”

“Don’t you think it's time to sober up, dear?” Aziraphale asks.

“Nah, I’m celebrating!” Crowley says, swaying on his feet. 

The angel puts an arm around his middle, and hoists his arms around his shoulders. “Come along, my dear. You’ve drunk quite enough,” Aziraphale says. 

“Don’t you wanna hear my bad job well done thingie?” Crowley asks. “It’s good, I promise!”

“Not here, dear,” Aziraphale says. He leads the two of them out the door, and to some lodgings not too far away. 

Once the door is closed behind them, Crowley fishes the paper out of his pocket. It takes him several tries, because he can’t see straight, let alone coordinate all his limbs in the motor movements needed to pick things up functionally. “Here, see look?” Crowley says, shoving the paper into Aziraphale’s hands. “Look at what they said I did!”

“The Inquisition… Corwley, you didn’t!” Aziraphale says, horrified. 

“Nah, that’s why I’m celebrating! They think I did the bad thing! But I had nothing to do with it,” Crowley days. “The humans think up all these tortures all on their own. I wasn’t even on this side of the cont.. pennin… the land massss thingie.” 

“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale says. 

“Have you seen it, angel?” Crowley asks. “I had to come sssee my hard work! It’s awful. The humans are killing anyone who disssagreess with them”

“Yes, I’ve seen it,” Aziraphale agrees. “It’s positively barbaric.”

“Yeah, that’s a good word. Barb.. barbar…”

“Crowly, how long have you been drinking?”

“Ssssince I got here,” Crowley hisses. 

“Which was when, exactly?”

“A week ago, maybe? Dunno, angel. Don’t ‘member.”

Aziraphale makes an alarmed face. “Crowley, darling,” Aziraphale says, “I’m going to sober you up some.”

“Noooo,” Crowley whines, as he feels some of the alcohol leave his bloodstream. “I hate this bloody fucking century,” Crowley groans as the residual alcohol makes its way straight to his head. 

“I am sorry, my dear. You were starting to look ill used,” Aziraphale explains. 

“I just want it to ssstop,” Crowley grumbles. “It’sss all ssso petty, the arguments over faith and belief. None of them are quite right, anyways.”

“They don’t know that,” Aziraphale says. 

“That doesn’t stop me from being annoyed with the nonsense of it all,” Crowley says. “Why can’t they all just…”

“Be nice to each other?” Aziraphale asks, echoing their conversation of some thousand years ago, at the Crucifiction. 

“Yeah, that.” 

“It’s free will, my dear,” Aziraphale says. “I suppose sometimes free will means letting someone be a bit of a bastard.”

“If you try to tell me it’s ineffable…” Crowley threatens.

The angel arches an eyebrow at him. “What would you call it?”

“My job made easier,” Crowley grumbles. “I just don’t understand how killing other people in Her Name is supposed to be Holy.”

“It’s not.”

“I don’t see your lot doing much to stop it!” 

Aziraphale looks down. “They’ve encouraged it, actually. Belief…”

“Is stronger and worth more than actually doing the right thing, got it,” Crowley gripes. 

“I’m not consulted on policy decisions, my dear.”

“I know, angel.”

The next morning, Aziraphale books them passage on a ship headed north to England.  _ If Crowley never sees Spain again _ , he thinks,  _ it will be too soon. _

***

**1945, Germany**

_ I believe in God, even when He is silent _

***

The stench hits him first. It’s like the worst bits of Spain, mixed with the misery of the initial parts of the Flood, combined with every bit of torture humanity has come up with in the past five thousand and a half years. It’s horrible, and he comes from Hell, which makes a point to do horrible smells. 

The sounds come in next. The air is deathly quiet, broken only by soft wails. Faint cries echo on the wind, sounding pitiful and broken. 

The gate is the worst.  _ Arbeit macht frei _ . It reminds him vaguely of Dante’s view of Hell- Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate: Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. Somehow, this is worse. The idea that work is what is happening here is… no, it's too much. 

“Hell is empty, and all the devils are here,” Crowley whispers to himself, and miracles himself through the gates. 

He takes great pains not to be seen. He has no desire to do this the human way- humans tend to be wary of him even in the best of times, and this is far from the best of times. He cloaks himself in darkness and despair, to better fit in with the surrounding dark and damp. The camp is eerily silent, this time of night. He’d observed this place, and others like it for days, before. The camp is never silent. 

Its as if the inhabitants know that there is an intruder in their midst. Know that there is a reckoning coming their way. 

He slips into the officers quarters first. He miracles misfortune and misery onto these despicable excuses for human beings. May they not find Hell enjoyable at all, after making life Hell on Earth for so many. 

May their memories be erased, with a vengeance. 

He spreads illness and discord, rotting good food, but only in the center. They will only discover the rot long after the food has been cooked and entered their bellies. He spreads disease, cursing these miserable excuses with constient, horrible stomach aches and headaches, and all level of low grade annoyances, that will lead to carelessness. 

When the Allies come- and they will come, he’s made sure of it- this torment will finally end. 

He works his way into the barracks, next. The people are packed together like sardines pressed into a can, worse than the most ill treated animals. Each person is so thin, he could wrap his entire hand around any extremity he chose. The stench, the hunger, the illness is so much worse in here- concentrated waves of misery swarming around the building. 

It makes him sick, to his very core. 

So much cruelty. So much hatred. The fight that began one thousand, nine hundred and eleven years ago seems to never end. It’s only getting worse, with each passing year. The inquisition had been bad enough. The pogroms that swept across Europe had been bad enough. 

Why is it not enough?

Dayenu. It would have been enough to escape from Egypt, without signs and miracles and wonders and treasure. It would have been enough to escape with their very lives, and not needed anything else. It would have been enough to be no longer slaves. To walk through the Sea of Reeds, and to be able to live. 

Would that the Almighty had saved some of those miracles for future years, for future generations. There are no miracles here. No hope for redemption. No mighty hand to sweep through and smite the Germans, as the Angel of Death did to the Egyptians’ first born children. 

He wants to rant and rave, to scream to the high Heavens, but he still has a job to do. 

He slips into each of the rooms, if they can be called that. In each person, in each room, he plants a seed of hope. It doesn’t have to be big. It just has to be enough belief that there is a way out- a light at the end of this never ending tunnel. He makes each thin, meager blanket just a little bit warmer, each worn out scrap of fabric covering their bodies just a little bit thicker. He adds a touch of thickening to each pot of food, for the meals (as much as they can be called that) to be just a bit more filling. 

It’s not enough. It won't ever be enough. 

Every night, he travels to a new camp, and does this song and dance over and over again. Behind him, the Allies rush in closer and closer. M16 thinks that he’s simply scouting out the way- but he sneaks in and causes a little infernal mischief for himself, too. 

If Head Office ever asks him to justify his actions, he’ll claim that adding a touch of hope makes the suffering even greater. That miserable head guards make their prisoners even more miserable. That the hope of light makes trying to survive in the dark with little more than a flickering match even worse when the match finally goes out. 

Head Office will never ask. They’re so busy with misery everywhere, that they can't be bothered to ask him to file reports in triplicate. It’s the one small bmercy of this war- he can get away with spreading hope far and wide, in a way that he would never be capable of if the Lords of Hell were watching him closely. 

It’s the only good thing he can find in tragedy. They watch him less closely, and then he can spread something better than misery. 

He hasn’t seen the angel in years, now, not since the do at the church. Presumably, Aziraphale is also working on the continent, spreading hope and light. If he thinks too hard about the angel in all this misery, he gets even more depressed. Aziraphale is too bright for this horrible, dingy existence. It’s where he, Crowley, belongs- denizens of Hell are literally forged in misery. But the angel? 

No. He’s too good for such horror. It affects him in a way that isn’t clear at first, but Crowley saw the aftermath of Spain. Aziraphale was dimmed, for weeks after. His light was covered, tarnished. 

He wouldn’t wish that on anyone, least of all his angel. 

But that’s the problem, isn’t it? Aziraphale isn’t really his, not in any way that matters. He never can be. They are enemies in every way that matters- opposite forces of good and evil, opposed for all eternity in a never ending war. There is no hope, not for that. 

Even if they may want to carve out a space that is theirs and theirs alone, they’re watched too closely for that. He can only imagine what new horrors might be visited upon them for daring to think they could be more than the most bitter of enemies. 

The camp is just as quiet upon entering as upon leaving. Crowley leaves the way he came, cloaked in darkness. Hopefully, the camp will be just a bit more miserable for the right people. 

Alone, in the dark, he lets it all go. He screams into the night, for the horror that he endures, day in and day out. It seeps into his soul, dark and necrotic. “Why?” He shouts. “Why do You do this?” 

There’s no answer, but he doesn’t expect one. There never is an answer- not even when he as still Holy, graced with eternal light. 

“After all this, I was right to ask questions,” he says aloud. “How could You do this to Your people? What gives You the right?” 

What gives Her the right? He snorts at his own stupidity. She’s G-d, the Almighty and All Powerful. She can do whatever She damn well pleases, and the rest of them all have to deal with the consequences. 

“Why did You make us all, if only to suffer?” he asks again, to no avail. He wants to cry, to scream, to enter Heaven himself and prove his membership of Israel, those who wrestle with G-d. He will find the Holy Presence, and wrestle Her to the ground, with no cause for mercy. She’s never shown any of them that vaunted mercy, after all. Why should he?

“Where are You, now?” Crowley asks again. “Why have You abandoned us?” He knows why he was abandoned, to an extent. The Fallen don’t get to have their questions answered- and the Holy don’t have questions to answer to begin with. 

The night is pitch black and silent- no answers forthcoming. As if they ever were. 

Crowley moves on, to the next camp, the next horror filled place, the next miserable, wretched Hellhole. There are no answers here, no sense of absolution to find. 

He sneaks through the night, walking slowly through the horror filled landscape. As he walks, he sings to himself, unable to stay silent in the oppressive dark. “ _ Oseh shalom bim'ro'mav, hu ya'aseh shalom alei'nu, v'al kol Yisrael, v'imru amen _ .” Never has peace been further away. 

It reminds him of the Ark, singing to the children to quiet them through the journey. Aziraphale had been there, then. They had kept the children alive and quiet, away from Noach’s family. After forty days and forty nights, the rains had cleared, and the sun had come out at long last, bringing the first rainbow. A promise, that She would never bring such destruction upon the earth again. 

“Fat lot of good your rainbow does us now,” Crowley grumbles. “This rather seems like more wickedness than they were ever capable back in the day. Why not break that promise and bring Your Wrath down upon the wicked now, when we need it more than ever? This has nothing on Sodom and Gomorrah. Nothing on the Egyptians. Where the Hell are You, hmm?” 

There’s no answer. Aziraphale would only say it's ineffable, that the Almighty works in mysterious ways. Crowley is inclined to think there’s nothing mysterious about genocide. If She’s still out there, then She just doesn’t care. And that’s all there is to it. 

Still. There’s no hope for not believing, not for him. It’s hard not to believe in the person who cast you screaming over the edge of Heaven, or daring to question. So, he sings. “ _ Oseh shalom bim'ro'mav, hu ya'aseh shalom alei'nu, v'al kol Yisrael, v'imru amen _ .” 

Maybe one day, he’ll get an answer. 

**Author's Note:**

> Translations and Notes:  
> The poem was found written on the wall of a cellar in the Cologne concentration camp. The full text can be found here: https://sairyd.wordpress.com/2011/11/13/a-poem-of-belief-by-a-jewish-prisoner-in-a-nazi-concentration-camp/   
> The song Crawley sings is a Hebrew prayer for peace: May the One who makes peace in His Heaven make peace on us and on all the world, and we say “amen”. The original prayer asks for peace upon all Israel, but “Israel” hasn’t been invented yet. The addition “on all the world” is often added in Reform prayer books for the High Holy Days, which I have substituted for the more standard “on all Israel”.   
> Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate/ Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here- Canto III of Dante’s Inferno, the first part of the Divine Comedy   
> “Hell is empty, and all the devils are here” -Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Act 1, Scene 2   
> Dayenu- from a traditional Pesach/ Passover recitation. Literally ‘it would have been enough’. It’s fifteen verses of saying that G-d has done great things for Israel: “If He had brought us out from Egypt, and had not carried out judgments against them dayenu! If He had carried out judgments against them, and not against their idols, Dayenu!” (And so on, and so forth).


End file.
